Letter: Climate has been changing for millennia

Climate change has been occurring for millennia

A trip to an Alaskan glacier a few years back brought home the reality of climate change. Not only was there the expected real evidence of the recent retreat of the glacier, but also of its size in prior centuries, extending miles further to completely fill its fiord and out into the sea in Columbus’ time.

Then, on return to Seattle, Wash., I saw a display showing how that area, like much of New York State, was completely covered in a mile-thick layer of ice about 14,000 years ago, and how that melted in the space of just 2,000 years (80 generations). From mile-thick ice here to glaciers continuing to retreat a thousand miles from here is climate change, and we did not cause that.

Despite evidence of continuing climate change over thousands of years, we panic and are encouraged to rush into half-baked policies that benefit mostly crony capitalists. Policies such as forcing power companies to purchase electricity from wind turbines located in areas like New York, where winds are too intermittent to allow our large electric power-generating plants to ramp down and back up again to maintain power when winds subside, thus wasting energy and our assets.

Wrecking our economy and squandering our assets with such waste will not stop climate change, but will destroy our ability to deal with that change.